Dutch Drug Cost Curbs "Working:" Sick Funds

The cost of pharmaceutical assistance in the Netherlands rose 193million guilders ($95.7 million) to 5.6 billion guilders ($2.77 billion), says a new report from the Sick Fund Council. 1996 was the fourth consecutive year that the growth of these costs was small, at around 3.5%, compared with an average of around 10.5% a year during 1989-92.

The GVS, the drug price law introduced on June 1, 1996, has had a positive effect on cost containment, the report adds, producing savings of 325 million guilders last year (estimated at 570 million guilders on an annual basis).

Doctors wrote 113 million prescriptions last year, a rise of 2%, and average drug expenditure per sick fund-insured person was also up only 2%, to 408 guilders, while the rise for those insured privately was 7% to 297 guilders on average. Total spending on drugs for the privately-insured was 114 million guilders last year.